


An Equal and Opposite Reaction

by HeartEyes4Mariska



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Confessions, Drama, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Family Drama, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Infidelity, Mental Health Issues, Oral Sex, Parent-Child Relationship, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sex, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartEyes4Mariska/pseuds/HeartEyes4Mariska
Summary: A two-shot Post-ep for "Swing""Kathleen saved herself, El. With a little help from you – and maybe Maddox.""Nah," he shook his head. "You saved her – I don't know what you did or how, but I know you had a hand in it."
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Spoilers: Rage (S6), Undercover (S9), Swing (S10)**

**Triggers: Mentions of sexual assault**

**An Equal and Opposite Reaction**

Liv could smell the alcohol with the inward swing of the door. _Rum?_ she thought, _No. Scotch._ The harder the crash, the more serious the liquor. He had his arms raised, braced against the doorframe, and his head was hanging, as though the wait for her to open the door had been days rather than mere moments.

"Can I com'in, Liv?"

"El," she frowned, "you're drunk."

He nodded. "Yeah. I am."

She half-rolled her eyes and left the door open, walking back into her living room. Elliot followed, shutting the door behind himself, but not bothering to take off his shoes. When he stopped, he swayed slightly on his feet, looking at her blearily. Taking a seat at the bar that divided the room, she crossed her arms.

"So. Did you just come to sober up, or?" she prompted.

"You saved my kid," Elliot said.

"Kathleen saved herself, El. With a little help from you – and maybe Maddox."

"Nah," he shook his head. "You saved her – I don't know what you did or how, but I know you had a hand in it."

"Shouldn't you be at the clinic, then, spending time with Kathleen and Kathy?"

He took a not-so-graceful seat on Olivia's couch. "Yeah, well. Kathleen is not so happy with me, right now."

"Oh, because you got her put in Rikers, you mean?"

"You don't need to lecture me again – I was there for the first one." Elliot picked absently at the arm of the couch, frowning. "You got anything around here to drink?" he asked after a beat.

"I think you've had enough, El," she chuckled.

"Probably," El nodded, "it's just . . . " he met her gaze, "you implied I don't talk enough. I just figure this'd be easier if I had another drink."

Liv sighed. "El, if you can't talk to me without being trashed, then that tells me pretty much all I need to know."

"Sand castles," he blurted out. "I used to make these . . . sand castles. Interconnected, taking up half the beach. All different sizes, and shapes, you know? Like little cities."

Liv held her breath. She could count on two hands the number of things she knew about Elliot's childhood, most of which she had learned in the course of the last week.

"When I got older, I liked to draw. Ma says I used to sketch buildings. Seascapes. Waterfronts . . . and I – I guess I was kinda interested in architecture."

She tried to picture her partner as anything other than a cop, and couldn't.

"But my old man, he uh – I looked up to him, you know? I mean, I was scared of him, but I knew he went to work to catch bad guys every day. I wanted to do that. I wanted to carry a badge and a gun, like my father."

_But you were scared of your mother, too_ , Liv opened her mouth to say, but then closed it again. She got up from the bar stool, and crossed to the couch, sitting down next to him.

"Liv . . . my father," Elliot's voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed hard, taking a shaky breath. "He used to beat the shit outta me. Mostly with his belt, but . . . not always."

Olivia's eyes widened.

"He was a hot-tempered S. O. B., who cheated on my mother every chance he got," Elliot admitted, "and I was never quite man enough, or Stabler enough, or Catholic enough for him."

"I'm sorry," she told him softly.

"No need to be. He's been dead a long time," El shrugged. "But Liv, if I've ever . . . scared you," he winced, "when I was beating up perps, or walls, or garbage cans, then I want to say I'm sorry."

Liv grinned gently, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You didn't have to drink a paycheck worth of Scotch to say that, did you?" He snorted but wouldn't look at her. "Elliot, if I was afraid of you, I wouldn't've worked with you for the last decade. I just don't like to see you self-destruct, is all."

"Yeah, well, I sure as hell passed _that_ on to my kids. Maybe you should be scared of me."

"You're not the first cop – or father – to have a hard time raising kids. What you need is to stop holding yourself to a higher standard than the rest of the human race. Set yourself up like that, and you're guaranteed to keep meeting trouble along the way."

He grinned. "Sometimes what I don't understand is how you became a cop. You're too damn smart for your own good."

They held each other's gaze just a beat too long, and Liv's heartbeat faltered. "What about your mom?" she asked.

"My mom never wanted to be a cop," Elliot deadpanned, earning himself another shove.

"I meant what was your relationship with your mother like?"

"Christ. I really do need a drink if I have to answer that one."

Liv rolled her eyes and pushed to her feet, going to the kitchen. "All I've got is a couple bottles of beer, and half a bottle of red wine."

He'd followed her, and she could feel him behind her. The creak of his leather jacket, the warmth of him. He reached out to the cupboard above her head, turning the wine bottle to read the label.

"Not much for variety, are you, Benson?" he chuckled, and the tickle of his breath against the side of her head raised goosebumps on her forearms. "Guess I'll go for the beer," he decided, and turned to the fridge.

_Goddammit_ , she thought, _get a hold of yourself. The first time he opens up to you, and you're focused on jumping his bones? Grow up._

As far as Liv was concerned, any window of opportunity there might have been for her and Elliot to "resolve" their unresolved tension was long since closed. Kathy and Elliot had been back together for a year, after being separated – nearly divorced – for three. Those years had been filled with demons and perils of all colors; a few that still haunted the two of them, but they had managed to come out on the right side of things.

Elliot tossed the cap from the beer to the counter. "I should'a told you my mother wasn't dead."

"Yeah, you should have," Liv nodded, filling a wine glass for herself.

"I'm sorry I never told you about her." Eyes on the floor, he spoke to his feet as he leaned on the counter edge. "I'm just not . . . I mean, even with Kathy, I've never been comfortable talking about myself."

"I've never noticed," Liv smirked into her wine glass.

"You're one to talk," El countered.

"Jesus, El, you know more about me than anyone."

He held her gaze. "What happened in Sealview?"

Just the prison's name changed the tenor of the room completely. The enjoyment that had been touching the corners of her eyes and mouth slid away with haste. "That's not fair," she said darkly. "It's not the same thing."

Keeping his silence, he watched her eyes, waiting. When she didn't say anything more for several minutes, he sighed. "You're right - it's not the same thing. But it's still important."

"You just want to know so you can decide if you want to kill him." She stepped around him, headed back to the living room.

"I could kill him regardless," Elliot shrugged, "and for less than I'm scared of." It was the first time Olivia had heard him say it that way; the first time he had said the thought scared him. "I want to know if . . . he raped you," he told her. Bile rose in his throat from the words, and he clenched his jaw in defiance.

Breathing shallowly, Liv stared into her wine, wondering if she could will what little she'd already swallowed to make her numb. "He - " she tried, then stopped. Elliot took a step closer. "Harris didn't rape me, Elliot."

"But he hurt you," he substituted.

She looked up, at last, and the shame in her eyes was matched only by the rage in her partner's. "He, uh," Liv licked her lips. "He sexually assaulted me."

Ten years in SVU pitched a collection of terminology at him then, running down the most likely candidates: _oral assault, digital assault, forcible touching, fondling._ Elliot saw red, squeezed the beer bottle in his hand, stopping short of busting it in his fist. "Olivia, I'm - "

"Will you stop saying you're sorry?!" Liv snapped. She gulped the rest of her wine. "I'm not a fucking child, I'm a big girl!" She blew past him, back to the kitchen for a refill.

He turned, but knew better than to follow her this time. "Liv, stop. You're not a girl at all; you're a woman, for all the button-down work suits that you insist on. And an incredible cop. None of that changes the fact that I should have been there for you, and I wasn't."

"Drop the guilt complex, Stabler," she sniffed, "you can't save everyone, all the time."

His temples pounded in time with his chest. "We're not talking about everyone, we're talking about _you_!" Now he did follow, striding into the kitchen, stopping with the length of the bar between them. "My partner, my _friend_ , Liv."

"I thought we were talking about you. Isn't that what you got drunk to come here and do?" she pointed out, "Or was that just a convenient cover for you to turn it back on me?"

Elliot took a deep breath, reining in his temper, struggling to refocus. "Ok. Yeah. You're right. So, I didn't tell you about my mother because I was – I am – ashamed. Ok?"

"Ashamed? El, my mother was a falling down drunk. If it was a contest - "

He slammed the beer bottle onto the counter. "That's my _point_!" he hissed. Liv gaped at him. "Your mother is gone, your father . . . " he motioned, but left it dangling, "and the problems you had with Simon. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only family you've got, and I didn't want to be just another fuck-up in your long line!"

Olivia's eyes stung with tears, frozen in place in front of the sink. _Christ, is that how he sees me?_ she thought, sickened, _As some little sister he has to watch out for? The squad is my family. I'm not some charity case. He – he pities me_. She stepped forward, vibrating with upset, with her embarrassment. "That's why I _didn't_ want to tell you," she seethed, "because I don't need your **_pity_**!"

She punctuated the last word with the pitch of her wine glass at the kitchen floor, where it shattered with a satisfying crash. Elliot moved back quickly, off-guard by the level of anger he'd never seen in his partner before. How any man had managed to assault her, he didn't know; she was a warrior, a hurricane in a glass.

While he was gathering himself, she had stalked back to the living room, and he turned to find her there, swearing at her own fingers. "Liv? You okay?" he asked quietly. He knew by the way she was eyeing her finger that she'd gotten glass in it.

"I'm fine, Elliot," she replied flatly. "You should go home."

"Let me see," he said, rounding the corner into the same room again.

"El. I'm _fine_. I can handle it."

Ignoring her, he took her wrist gently, turning her hand in the light. He saw it, immediately. "You have a pair of tweezers? Some nail clippers would be good, too."

" In the bathroom," Liv told him. She could feel the fight bleeding out of her, as if the glass had created an exit to vent it.

"Sit on the couch," he instructed, then headed to the bathroom. After rummaging for a few minutes, he returned with the tweezers, clippers, and a first aid kit. He pulled up her coffee table, using it as a seat, where he sat between her knees and took her hand into his lap.

Olivia watched his face, frowning with concentration, chasing the glass splinters with the tweezers. She wondered, if he was normally the parent to play doctor to his sick kids. What he'd just been through with Kathleen was certainly no great indication. Did he know he had great kids? Did he ever come down out of cop mode long enough to really see it?

"Listen," he spoke, breaking into her reverie, "I know you don't want to hear any more apologies, but I gotta say somethin'." He kept his eyes on her finger, his voice close to a whisper. "I'm sorry, that I wasn't with you in Sealview. I knew that UC situation was high-risk. And I _know_ \- " he stressed, "I know that you can handle yourself. I never doubt you. I just . . . "

"I know, El. I get it."

"Harris is an animal," he ground out. "Whatever he did, it haunts me. The not knowing. Not because I thought you couldn't handle it, but because it was _you_. It was _you,_ Liv."

Elliot glanced up for a brief moment, and she finally recognized the look in his eyes. He looked back down, finally succeeding in liberating the shard from her finger. It came away with a burn of pain and Liv sucked in a gasped breath. The wound bled, faintly.

"Fuck, sorry," he rasped. Without thinking, he raised her hand and took the fingertip into his mouth, sucking gently. It was the most intimate contact they'd had in ten years. Olivia's heart trip-hammered, and she grew helplessly wet in an instant.

Sheepishly, he removed it again, reaching for the first aid kit. She watched him finish – clean it, put a band aid on it. He grinned. "All better," he declared.

_I've got a few other parts that could use some doctoring_ , Liv thought furtively, her chest blooming with heat.

"I'm going to sweep up your floor," Elliot said, standing up.

Slowly, Liv got up and made her way back to the edge of the kitchen, watching her partner as he swept. "Will you . . . finish telling me about your mother?"

"I was close to my mother," he answered after a pause. "Until I got old enough to recognize that her behavior wasn't like other moms. But even then, the good times were good. You know, when you're a kid, plenty of crazy ideas seem mostly like a lotta fun."

He bent, sweeping glass into the dust pan.

"Sometimes those ideas got my folks fighting though," he admitted, "and I think that's when it started to frighten me. I guess I . . . drew back from my mother, not wanting to give my old man more reason to dislike me. He knew I was a lot like her. I thought being like her would make me crazy, too. That I would lose both my parents." Elliot stood, looked at her again. "In the end, I guess I still did."

Olivia swallowed dryly, her heart aching. "Elliot, I . . . I met her."

He stilled. "Huh?"

"I went to New Jersey, and I met your mother," she confessed.


	2. Chapter 2

Elliot fell silent, and Liv waited, to be either admonished or pardoned.

"You went – "

"To Long Beach, yeah," Liv supplied. "I went to talk to her, to see . . . to see if I could get her to change her mind."

"And did she?"

"Not exactly," she said slowly, "but . . . she helped Kathleen."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"El, you didn't mention your mother in ten years. I figured if I asked you, or told you, that we would get into it. You would have told me not to go," Liv sighed, "and it was too important."

He scrubbed a hand over his face with the hand not holding the broom, then bent back to the dust pan and finished cleaning up the broken glass. Olivia remained braced for a grenade that seemed not to be tossed, after all. With the broom put away, El reached for his forgotten beer, finishing it in two long pulls, then he turned and retrieved the other from the fridge.

"So, what did she have to say about me?" he asked her. "Did she regale you with stories of how much I've fucked up over the years?"

"What? No, of course not! El, your mother loves you – more than you realize."

He snorted. "Oh yeah? You might not have thought so, had you been there when I went to see her."

"Look, I know that your mother has made some choices that were hard . . . and she knows exactly what she's lost because of them. But she does love you," Liv stressed, "and your family."

With his new beer in hand, he returned to the living room, dropping heavily back onto the couch. His eyes were dark, a look coloring them that Liv couldn't quite name. She stopped across from him, arms crossed over her chest.

"What is it, El?"

His eyes stayed unfocused, looking through her, vacantly. "My whole life, Liv – my whole life I spent afraid that I would become my mother. That one day I'd just . . . snap, and it would be her illness, comin' for me. That it was _in_ me, just waiting for an opportunity.

"But Kathleen . . . O. D'd like that," Elliot's voice cracked as it squeezed out of his tightening throat, "Jesus, I'm not sure I've ever been that terrified, Olivia. My mother, she told me that I - I'm living my old man's life. That I lost my passion." He blinked, looking at her. "And I'm not so sure she's wrong."

"C'mon, Elliot." Liv came around the coffee table, sitting next to him again. "You're passionate about lots of things. Your job, your family, your faith," she listed.

He laughed softly, touched by her efforts. "I'm talking about creative passion, Liv. The stuff that lit me up, before I poured everything into young marriage and redeeming my father's sorry legacy."

Olivia shifted uncomfortably, unnerved by his rawness. Where had this side of her partner come from? She was used to him being walled up, impenetrable in his fortress of righteousness – unless, of course, he was taking his demons out on a perp.

He sat forward, sliding his beer bottle onto the coffee table. "I'm sorry that you didn't get to know me then. Before. I'm starting to wonder if I was the better man, then."

Momentarily dumbfounded, she stared at him as he continued to look at the carpet. Words were heaped one on the other in her throat, blocking their passage out. It seemed that no matter how much they said to each other, it would never be everything. It wouldn't be what they should have said to each other, when they had the chance.

"Elliot."

"Yeah?"

"Look at me." She waited for his crystalline blue eyes to match her gaze. "You're a _good_ man. A _great_ cop, an amazing father. The best partner I've ever had, and my best friend." She smiled. "I don't want any other version of you. I just want _you_."

Perhaps it was her inflection on _want you_ . . . or, it could have been the culmination of the drinking. It could have been ten years of the butterfly effect, finally shifting from the other side of the planet, for all anybody knew. But slowly Elliot was leaning in. Liv watched it happen, until their lips met. There was no attempt to stop him, or to talk herself out of it; her mind had fallen conspicuously quiet.

Olivia had a healthy fantasy life – but as most adults knew, the reality could go one way or the other.

The heat of their touching this way was enough to vaporize her fantasies. Everything, all of it, was much more than she had imagined: the taste of him, the scratch of his stubble , the familiarity of his warmth, his scent. Elliot brought a hand up to the side of her neck, trying to pull her closer where there was no closer left. Why hadn't he done this sooner? Years ago? Why in Christ's name had he not done it a year ago, when he should've? he wondered.

_Because you're a coward,_ he answered himself.

She was moaning into his mouth, and they had hardly even touched each other yet. He pushed away every alarm going off, not caring if he was somehow failing at an altogether new story – if this was the hill he had to die on, so be it. At least he'd die knowing what it felt like to be inside her, more than just physically, what it felt like to love her.

They parted with El panting, struggling to center himself and find some control. Neither of them spoke. He rose to his feet, shedding his jacket, unbuttoning the blue work shirt he hadn't bothered to change since court that afternoon. Then he turned back to her and offered her his hand.

Liv took it, and let him draw her to her feet, where he touched a hand to her cheek. He stroked his thumb over her lips, then followed the motion with his mouth. Olivia opened her mouth, letting him devour her, and he grunted with wolfish appreciatiom. His arms slid around her, then lowered, grazing her ass cheeks, stopping at the tops of her thighs. Elliot pushed her weight up into his arms, urging her legs around his waist. Blindly, he started for the bedroom.

Couched in shadows, the bed beckoned with its own groan of agreement, welcoming their inevitable exploit. He bent over her, unhappy that he only had two hands, watching her arch against his touch. There was no hint of Detective Benson here – nothing buttoned-down, protected from the boys' club that was the police force. She was hungry, stripped to the barest version of herself that she would ever give him, and he had no intention of missing a single opportunity to worship at her offering.

Christ, how he loved her. How he always had.

Her fingernails dug a home into his shoulders after pushing off his open shirt, and she was whimpering at the feel of his warm, taut belly brushing hers. Then her bra was off, and his heart battered his ribs as he tasted her skin, covering each nipple, grazing them with his teeth. Liv's skin flushed, sheened with anticipatory sweat, her hips bucking under his weight. She'd never been so desperate. She wondered if she'd survive it.

El pulled back, chuckling to find Olivia trying to get her own jeans open, and a hand down her pants. Playfully, he smacked her hands away. He leaned in to the shell of her ear. "Uh-unh," he whispered, "that's my job." She grunted, a fresh flood of wetness pooling between her legs at the feel of his breath, hot on her ear. His hands landed heavily on the button and zipper.

"Tell me," he breathed, popping the button, "how many times you did this and wished it was me." The zipper creaked down. She squirmed. "Hmm? How many others? How many nights you slid your hand between your legs and whispered my name."

"So many!" she gasped, "Fuck, El . . . so - "

His hand slid into her pants, held tight to her mons by the pressure of the jeans. He looked at her face, sliding a finger over her clit. She nearly screamed with the relief of it. Then his own eyes closed, exhaling sharply through his nose, his mouth back to her ear. "Olivia . . . you're so. Fucking. Wet."

She lost her precarious hold on the edge, thrusting into his palm, coming in her pants like a virgin. Chasing her tongue as it snaked out to wet her lips, he kissed her again. He was grinning, pleased with himself, and she felt momentarily bad for the priest who would take his confession that week. "Braggart," she teased, wriggling from under him.

She got up, lit by the soft light from the window, and slowly took off the rest of her clothes, captured by Elliot's face as he watched. Captured, too, by the obvious strain of his cock inside his jeans. She stepped between his spread legs at the edge of the bed, watching the rapid rise and drop of his chest, sliding a finger lightly down his belly.

Liv opened his jeans, letting the zipper down. She ran her fingers over the outline that was visible in the space she'd made, then lowered his boxer-briefs a mere inch or two, revealing the head of him. El sighed, raising his arms above his head, hiding his nerves. Time seemed to stutter, tripping over itself as he watched her lower over him. Her tongue ran up the short length that she had freed, then took it into her mouth.

"Jesus," he strangled out, " _Jesus_ . . . "

Her mouth, the pressure of the jeans against him, her hand dragging light touches against his balls – no woman had ever undone him by doing so little. Then she was pulling his jeans and underwear down, yanking him free of all that was left between them. Laying down beside him, she placed a kiss to the hollow of his throat, wrapping a warm hand around his cock, straining toward his belly.

"What about you?" she whispered, tugging on him firmly, experimentally. Elliot thrust into her hand, catching his breath. "What have you wished for, El?"

In answer, he moved her hands again, rolling over her, then moving lower. Elliot settled between her legs like a man sitting down to take the time to pray. Using both hands he spread her open, admiring the pouty swell of her clit, the shine of how wet she was. He touched a fingertip to her clit, circling gently, then slid to where she was pooled with desire. Adding a second finger, El slid them carefully into the silky heat of her.

Overwhelmed, he felt tears prick at his eyes. He moved in her, humbled by the feel of her, the sound of her breathing as it changed. Married since he was eighteen, Elliot Stabler had never found himself ready to weep at the altar of a woman's heat. Olivia was dripping, writhing, pushing and he met her, move for move. Just like on the job, they were partners here, too: synced, instinctively driven to fulfill the other's needs. Throbbing, she came, gripped around his fingers and fisting the sheets to anchor her in the world. He gathered her into his arms, both of them panting.

This could never be a one-night stand. He knew it as plainly as he knew the sun was going to come up in the morning. Neither of them could walk away from what was between them, without having to break something in themselves.

Liv nudged him backwards, slipping gracefully over his hips, and straddled his waist. She took him into her hand, hard, hot, throbbing, and leaking precum, nestling the tip of him between her legs. "Tell me," she whispered, echoing his words, "how many times did you do this and wish it was me?"

Olivia slid onto him, straight to the hilt, and he thought he would shoot before she had a chance to move. _God help me_ , he thought. The desire, the shame, the weight of his emotions spurred him to move again. He took her by the hips and drove up into her, groaning low in his throat.

"Tell me," she demanded, leaning in and landing biting nips along his jaw.

"God, Liv, so many times. So many nights," he panted.

She smiled like a cat in the cream and ground her hips harder onto him. He was huge and hot, filling her, in all the ways she felt empty. Her mouth found his ear. "Elliot. I wanna feel you come. Please."

He was a man of so few denials. His hand held her head to his shoulder as he came, growling into the side of her neck. Liv whimpered, her hips slamming to a halt, driving him into her. "Yes," she cried softly, "yes, yes, yes." He felt her tighten around him, coming again.

Spent, exhausted, they didn't move from their position. Elliot was fighting the heavy slide of his eyelids when Liv whispered again.

"I love you."

"I love you, too." Then, "Thank you for saving my daughter."

Tomorrow, there would be other things to say. Tomorrow was a place of consequences, and of talking. It would bring with it things like guilt, and all sorts of other complications.

But the night would be long, in the dusk of the room. He had so much to tell her, and so many ways that he wanted to show it.

**END**


End file.
